IDEA: Linux kernel and pcbios compatibility...
Greg Watson
gwatson at lanl.gov
Fri Dec 19 14:39:01 CET 2003
At 11:20 AM -0700 12/19/03, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>Stefan Reinauer <stepan at suse.de> writes:
>
>> * Eric W. Biederman <ebiederman at lnxi.com> [031219 01:36]:
>> >
>> > Brainstorming earlier today I think I have found a way to use
>> > an linux kernel for the boot loader and to implement pcbios
>> > compatibility without too much cost. The idea is to use
>> > a uclinux kernel. And implement a ``user space'' aplication
>> > that is a user space shim that makes kernel calls.
>>
>> What functionality is it exactly that we need the uclinux
>> kernel for? We won't do any scheduling, and we won't need source code
>> drivers if we implement a pcbios "emulation"
>> What I liked most about the LinuxBIOS2 approach is that
>> code was only introduced in the tree when it was specifically needed.
>>
>> Since I had my hands at the Alpha bootloader Milo, everything that uses
>> a Linux kernel for it's operations kind of scares me...
>
>So this is for the bootloader, the payload and it will be optional.
>This will not go into the linuxBIOS tree, this is an alternative to
>etherboot.
>
I would like to see this from the PPC perspective. Since neither filo
nor etherboot work on PPC, this might be a good way of booting from,
say, a disk. Which would be nice.
Greg
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